Years of Blindness
by ArcTheJedi
Summary: Naruto discovers a silent messenger one morning. NaruHina fluff, occurs before Trial by Leaves. Counterpart to My One and Only Star. Naruto's side of the story. Is it still a oneshot if there are 2 versions of the same scene?


Mushy romantic NaruHina scene, take two! Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters. I only wish I did.**

* * *

"All right, all right, I'm coming!!" yelled Naruto Uzumaki. The future Hokage had been very determined not to wake up so early. Unfortunately, whoever was pounding at his door was just as determined to wake him. Grumbling something about impatient house guests to himself, the tall blond ninja flung open his door--

--To discover that his visitor was a book. He frowned down at it, then leaned out slightly to look around for its noisy, incessant courier. No one within sight. With a loud sigh, he reached down and scooped up his delivery, reentered his apartment, and made his way back to the bed he had just vacated. At first glance, the book seemed unimpressive; its binding was simple brown leather, worn from years of use, and the rudimentary clasp over its pages was beginning to look haggard. Yet for all its apparent age, it was obviously kept in very good condition; it seemed utterly untouched by any sort of damage except that done by time. Curious by now, Naruto sat down on his bed, undid the clasp, and flipped through some of the pages. The text on the first page was inked over to the point of becoming unreadable, but each successive one was clean, tidy, and filled with meticulous handwriting. And there were a _lot_ of pages. He looked at the time and saw that it was still early. He had another busy day of lessons from various people preparing him for the role of Hokage he hoped to fill, but the first of his appointments was still a couple of hours away.

He leaned onto his side on his mattress, supporting himself casually on one elbow as he flipped to the start and began to read, eyes glancing over the words with idle interest.

* * *

He sat straight up, every muscle iron-ridged, every ounce of attention rapt on the text before him. Upon reaching the end, he immediately flipped to the next page, only to find it blank. He quickly confirmed that the rest remained unused. 

Naruto gingerly closed the book and set it down on the bed beside him as carefully as if it were made of fine glass. The motion took more effort than it should have; as he reflected on all that he had just read he suddenly felt very drained. His body slumped and he wearily massaged his temples as the realization of years of blindness settled over him like a smothering blanket. How could he have missed it? How could he, who knew better than anyone what it was like to be ignored and cast aside, have committed the same crime for so long?

His eyes snapped open and flew to his clock. Several hours had flown by unnoticed, but there was plenty of time left in the day. Suddenly filled with a burst of new energy and resolve, he hurriedly began to get dressed. He had already missed his first few appointments, and he was scheduled to meet with Shizune to study poetry and formal speech in just a few minutes, but none of that mattered now; he had something far more urgent to deal with.

He paused over the long, white, flame-emblazoned coat he had added to his regular outfit. He remembered the way _she_ had blushed the first time she saw him wearing it. He also remembered carelessly writing it off as one of her _eccentricities_, her _quirks_.

Snarling to himself, he threw the coat on, scooped up the book that had informed him of so much, and ran out the door, rushing to talk to someone who was suddenly _very_ important to him.

* * *

"A pleasure to see you, Mister Uzumaki. What brings you to honor our home?" Hanabi Hyuuga said with rehearsed precision and formality. 

"I'm here to see your older sister. Is she home?" Naruto replied.

"Certainly. Proceed down this hallway and turn at the first right and then the second left. Hinata's room will be the one at the end."

"Thanks," he mumbled as he set off at a brisk pace.

If Naruto had been paying attention, he would have noticed that the young girl did not seem at all surprised to see him --in fact, the smile she wore almost seemed to suggest he was _expected_. In his distracted state, however, he was oblivious. She followed him until she was sure he would not get lost, then quietly slipped away.

This too went unnoticed.

* * *

"Did you forget something, Saku--" Naruto heard her begin as she opened her door. Whatever else she was going to say was cut off at the sight of him. He watched her gaze creep upward until it met his. Right at the moment their eyes made contact, Hinata Hyuuga blushed deeply as she always had at this proximity to him. Yet now he knew _why_. 

He resisted the temptation to kick himself and kept a smile on his face. "Hey, Hinata. Do you have a minute?" he asked as casually as he could.

She seemed stuck in a daze for a long moment, but then she snapped out of it and stuttered a quiet "O-of c-course." She stepped aside to let him through, but almost instantly he heard her gasp and saw her dart around her room, picking things up off the floor. Her room was, he saw, disorganized to say the least. It looked all too well like the subject of a frantic but thorough search. He groaned inwardly. He had been hoping there was some distant, remote chance that there had been a mistake, but the odds were not looking good at all.

"I-I apologize for the mess," she called over her shoulder. "I was j-just looking for m-my--" her voice trailed off and her flurry of activity paused.

"For your diary?" he supplied quietly. He winced when he saw her body stiffen, but he nevertheless produced the diary in question --for that is what it was-- from its concealment in his coat. She turned around at a painfully slow rate. When she saw the book in his hand, she promptly fainted.

Grimacing to himself, he caught her as she fell and reflected that he probably should have handled that in a slightly better way.

* * *

She wasn't gorgeous, Naruto thought. She wasn't, for example, the type of woman the Pervy Sage usually included in his make-out books. Neither did she make any attempt to accentuate and capitalize on her looks, like Ino or Sakura. All in all, she looked rather _plain_, to be blunt. 

Yet as he sat watched her lay quietly breathing on her bed where he'd placed her, there was something about her that captivated him. He couldn't decide what it was that made Hinata beautiful, but it was there all the same.

He saw her peek an eye open and look around, clearly trying to be furtive. He felt a smile tug at his mouth. Whatever else there was to her, she was undeniably cute. When she caught sight of him, he saw her eye scrunch closed again and her body stiffen slightly as she attempted to make herself appear still unconscious. But almost immediately her eyes flew open again and she stared at him, open-mouthed.

For a long moment, they held each other's gaze. Then she looked away, sat up, and turned toward him, fidgeting uncomfortably. Suddenly reminded of the reason for his visit, fatigue began to creep into him again, and his smile drained to a chagrined smirk.

As he struggled to find some way to begin, he took the opportunity to study her a bit longer. Her indigo hair, immaculately combed, fell just below her shoulders. As always, locks of it fell in front of her ears, framing her pale face perfectly. Her outfit of choice was still conservative --though not as excessively as it had once been-- and its colors were a combination of various shades of blue, white, and purple that could only be described as _soothing_. Her hands, which twiddled nervously in her lap, looked deceptively delicate, considering the life she led as a ninja. He began to wonder what it must feel like to be touched by those hands…

He stopped and frowned. _Where did _that_ come from?_

Then he noticed that she was blushing again. When he realized that he was making her wait in what couldn't have been a comfortable silence, he bit back a curse for himself and hurriedly gathered his thoughts.

He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Hinata. Someone left your diary on my doorstop this morning. Whoever it was messed with it enough so that I wouldn't know what it was --let alone _whose_ it was-- until I read a few pages." His eyes and his voice lowered in shame. "And once I read a few, I couldn't stop."

He risked a glance at her face, and her expression stabbed an icy dagger into his heart; she was trying valiantly not to cry, but the pain and sorrow in her face was palpable. Once again, he had hurt her badly. He gritted his teeth, wishing he could just drop the whole subject. But he had to _know_.

"So, is it all true?" As he spoke, his mind summoned up every memory of his childhood it could find. The looks of hate, revile, and disgust on the face of almost every adult he met. The cold mockery of the children who shared their parents' distrust without knowing the reason behind it. But more than any of the hate or bitterness showed him, he knew it was the loneliness that had hurt the most. Every pair of eyes he met seemed to slide right past him, or, when they remained, saw only the monster people said he was. No one acknowledged him. No one even _saw_ him. The pain of _never being noticed_ was the worst thing that he had ever felt. He clutched at the hope that there was some misunderstanding, for he desperately did not want to believe that he had inflicted that same misery on _Hinata_ of all people.

"Yes," she said quietly. He saw her visibly sag, in tandem with his spirit. "Yes, every word is true, from the very beginning to this very day."

He felt tears welling up and tried to hold them back. He took a deep breath to steady himself and stood. She stood as well, doubtless to show him the exit. But before he could let himself leave, there was one thing knew with every fiber in his being he needed to do.

He flung his arms around her. Feeling her body tense up, he pressed his forehead against her shoulder so he would not see the shock on her face.

"Forgive me, Hinata," he choked out, struggling to keep his voice steady. "I have been blind. For all those years I thought I wandered alone in darkness, I needed only to look over my shoulder to see one as lost as I was. I found friends and precious people since then to care about and protect, but I only now find my oldest and strongest pillar of support." The tears refused to be restrained any more, and they leaked out onto her shirt. Through all of his misery, he found himself idly surprised at the poetic quality of his words. He didn't know where this eloquence came from, but he hoped it would convince Hinata of his sincerity. He let the words flow from his heart without thought as he continued. "You _cared_ when I needed it most, and I never even noticed. When I pulled myself from those hateful shadows, I left you to wander in loneliness. Can you ever forgive my ignorance?"

"B-but you didn't!"

He had readied himself for a myriad of responses, from angry indignation to sorrowful rejection, but the _surprise_ in her voice caught him completely unprepared. His face turned up to hers in stunned curiosity. He saw her blush yet again, but for once she did not look away.

"You didn't leave me in loneliness," she began, oddly without a trace of her usual stutter. "Even in the darkness, you were always the light that showed me the way to continue. When you left the shadows, you led me into the sun. I, too, have found friends to count on, and a dream to pursue; to follow my one and only star, so that one day I could shine as brightly for him." She was _pleading_ with him, he realized. Pleading for him to forgive himself. He stared at her in awe. She didn't resent him; she didn't even hold him at fault. Even now, when he was wretched with shame, disgusted _with himself_, her only concern was to jump to his defense. It was in that moment, when he saw the depths of her feelings, that he realized what it was that made her beautiful.

Her cheeks flushed red and her eyes fell away. "I-if anything," she stuttered quietly, "c-can you f-forgive _me_? B-because I was n-never b-brave enough to t-tell you h-how I feel, you h-had to r-read it in that stupid book--"

No. His heart suddenly on fire, he refused to let her debase herself with even one more word. Whatever else she was going to say was cut off when he pressed his lips to hers.

It was as if he had been struck by lightning. He wanted to **leap** to the top of Hokage Mountain and **shout** what he felt to the **entire** **world**. He felt a burst of heat course through her body; it flashed across their lips and flooded through him as well. She sagged in his arms, but her mouth refused to leave his. Finally, it was a need for oxygen that forced him to pull back.

His pulse racing, he smiled at the woman he had just come to love. "Only if you can forgive a knucklehead like me for missing all your efforts," he answered. She stared up at him, wide-eyed but neither blushing nor the slightest bit self-conscious, and nodded as though stupefied. He flashed her the biggest grin he could manage. "Besides," he said cheerfully, "you shouldn't call that book stupid. It's the best thing I ever read!"

Then he kissed her again. As he felt her arms wrap around him, the world around them faded away and he became blind once again.

To everything but her.

* * *

Again, hopefully not too corny or out of character, eh? Please leave a review, and if you haven't read "My One and Only Star," be sure to take a look for Hinata's side of the story. Thanks! 


End file.
